Share your Crazy rental stories

[eye2dry]

Hi All.

Was just reading a post about someones awful apartment and repairs needed. Thought I would ask you all to tell about your worst and/or funniest rental you had in your life.

Especially when you first start out on your own or newly married etc....


My mother told me when I was a baby (my father was in the marines) they were off base living in Virginia and they rented a converted barn. Yes...a barn that someone made into an apt. to actually rent out to PEOPLE.

She said in the morning when she'd go to get me out of my crib...... she had to dust the snow off of me first.


eye2dry

[Gayle]

eye2dry - that is hilarious!

Well my story is not mine actually but my husbands... thus I have heard it SO many times, I feel I lived it.

When his parents got married, he was in the Navy. My husband was the 2nd child. They lived on base but it was a one bdrm apt and so his older brother had the crib and my husband was in a dresser drawer! We always tease him that his parents closed the drawer when he was fussy! He is called the drawer baby by many friends...

Gayle

[ashewoman]

I think it was my post about the bad rental... LOL but it is better than this story.  After Katrina, livable space was at a premium and my funds were not.  So I agreed to move into this studio and made a deal with the manager to clean out the place from what the previous tenants had left behind.  I knew it was bad but in lieu of paying a deposit it seemed like a fair deal.  After all, I generally give any place I move into a good once over with bleach even if it looks clean.  So I agreed after peeking inside minus electricity and I thought I knew what I'd signed on for.  Once I'd given notice and switched my utilities over, I honestly had no choice but to continue or be outdoors.  They should have paid me to clean that up.  Let me tell you what....

The disgusting people before me left the fridge when the power went out and it had not been touched... that was not a pleasant surprise. I knew the whole place was filled with broken furniture and debris that I had to haul down stairs to the dumpster.  It should be said this was trash not hurricane debris... these people lived in trash on a regular basis.  What I didn't know was that these humans who were obviously unfit to care for themselves had also had half a dozen cats... a half grown litter of kittens apparently... that they had locked in their bathroom.  You could see once the lights were on how they had tied off the door and it had been scratched and chewed until there was a huge gap.  The "litter box" was the bathtub which was filled to the brim with kitty doodie and litter.  Who lives like that?  Where were these people taking their own baths?  I dragged a friend down and the manager and showed them my nightmare studio.  The manager said "Look I didn't know" which I highly doubt and "you don't have to move in" which was really not true since I had already turned in the keys to the old place.  My friend was a painter who had a solution... he said "knock out the worst of it with bleach and I have an industrial sprayer and this new antibacterial paint they formulated exactly due to situations like biohazardous hurricane wastes. We'll plaster the whole place with it and it'll be like a brand new place."

I don't know that it was that.  I had to haul off 2 industrial garbage cans full of kitty gravel to empty that tub.  4 gallons of bleach later and his high powered paint sprayer and I will say this... you couldn't tell it was the same place.  I never ever felt comfortable eating anything out of that refrigerator though no matter how clean it looked it could never really be clean to me.  Of course someone pointed out to me that you just never know what happened in a place before you moved in if they clean it well... could be that had happened before and I just never knew since I wasn't the one who had to clean it.  One day, I'm going to own... but until then... ugh.  LOL

About 6 months later, this strange looking college age kid wearing a kilt and dreadlocks knocked on my door.  He said "I used to live here," and tried to shake my hand.  I looked him dead in the eye and said, "Ugh! I'm not touching you."  My brother came and peered over my shoulder because he'd heard the story of the shape this apt was in when I got it.  The kid says, "What's your problem?"  My brother told him, "Man you might as well have just introduced yourself as Mr. Nasty admitting you left this place covered in cat poop. We didn't know humans could live like that!" He turned bright red and I slammed the door back.  Served him right. 

[MissyLouWho?]

it was a one bdrm apt and so his older brother had the crib and my husband was in a dresser drawer!

OMG!  I have the same story!  My parents lived in a one bedroom and money was tight so I slept in the dresser drawer next to my mother's bed so she could reach me in the night.  When she told me that I was so appalled but she was cool about it .  "Everybody did it. You were comfortable. You had blankets."  I really thought she was making it up!!!

[Gayle]

MISSY!!! Too funny... same here, I always thought they made it up but was great to laugh about... She (MIL)said the same thing too - you were comfy! Whats the problem!!

Nice to know other have had same experience!
Gayle

[MissyLouWho?]

I have another one, but as the landlord. 

A few years ago we rented a house to a lovely woman with 2 teenage sons that didn't live with her (they lived with their dad), but it was a 3 bedroom house and they could each have their own room when they came to visit.  She came with great references, both business and personal, and she was an avid church goer with friends of ours.  After 6 months, her neighbors (also friends of ours) called to complain about the late night parties that were going on a lot . 

It took us 4 months to finally find her to let us in the house.  Here, she had let her teenage sons move in and she moved out with her new boyfriend.  The boys trashed the house, pouring bleach in puddles on the carpets (probably to clean the animal messes that we said they weren't allowed to have, but they snuck in 2 dogs and a cat)), cut up the bathroom floor , broke the appliances, broke all the vertical blinds we had custom installed, and here's the best part: outside we had laid sod a few years before they moved in.  The boys cut up the sod, rolled it, and stacked it near the fence.  They dug a hole in the ground and put a blow up pool in the hole.  Then built fire pits in other areas of the yard, charring the remainder of our sod  . 
The crowning glory has to be that they never went in the house to use the bathroom during these parties, instead just went wherever they wanted (behind the shed, on my trees, the side of the house...)  The smell was so bad.  Even their deposit couldn't cover the damage by a long shot. 

So I guess instead of it being my story, THEY will have a crazy rental story to share!

[Joe S.]

One of my tenants complained about snakes or worms coming up from the drain. (In MN all we have is garter snakes). I got everything I needed to clean the drains. When I checked the drain that she was complaining about I found spaghetti noodles. I was told that they never eat spaghetti. One of her kids chimed in and said that they get spaghetti when grandma takes care of them and they do not like spaghetti.

I think you can piece together what happened and how the "snakes" got in the shower drain.

[irish]

This explains the saying, Everyone is crazy except me and thee and sometimes I wonder about thee!!!

There are some weird people in this world. Have no idea how they are raised to learn some of the behaviors they exhibit. Maybe they aren't raised, maybe they just grow! IRish

[xANTHONYx]

In my first college apartment, $275 of the deposit was non-refundable do to "required extensive maintenance including wall resurfacing and floor cleaning upon move out." I thought that was pretty steep but I looked at the demo unit and liked it, so I ignored that and signed the lease.

When I got to my actual unit I found out why the fee was so high...In between EVERY tenant they would re-plaster the walls. Rumor has it the owners collected this large fee since the place was built in the 1950's. Someone sued them in the 1960's claiming the fee was fraudulent, so rather than refund the entire deposit if the place was left in good shape, they founded a construction company and re-plastered the walls in between each tenant to justify the mandatory charge of half the deposit.

However, their plan backfired when they realized how expensive and labor intensive it was to remove all of the old plaster/drywall and install new, so they just started putting on a new layer of plaster between tenants and pocketed the excess fee. By the time I moved in, there were two sets of trim on every door as they had applied so much plaster that the original trim was actually recessed so they added another layer on top of it.

That being said, the place was well insulated and pretty much sound proof, however, it occasionally snowed when someone shut a door too hard, or the tenant above me moved her furniture around.

[Gayle]

Anthony  that is too crazy!

OkayI have two 'quick' not really tenant stories but still... sort of.. I worked with foreign students and monitored them for years, writing DOS reports, etc.

One girl arrived from Spain, she was thin but nothing shocking. A month later the host family had a plumbing problem with a shower and called a plumber in to check it out/fix it. The plumber arrived and tore into the drains, etc and found broccoli, salad, meats, you name it. She had heard in the US we didn't approve of anorexia and would know that is what was going on if she flushed the toilet, so she would throw up in the shower and told everyone she had to shower after meals. UGH>>> yes she went home eventually as she refused / could not stop.


A girl was here on scholarship - she was very nice and VERY shy. She had been here about 6-7 months when one day her 'mom' went into her room to put laundry on the bed. There was a terrible... terrible odor in her room. Upon investigation, under the bed was found used napkins. She was not wanting anyone to know she had had a period so thought she could hide it. We had to pay to replace the carpet in the room.

[Pisces24]

Rental apts sounds as fun as looking to buy your first home.
The realtor showed me this nice little older home. Unfortunately it had a couple features I couldn't accept. She turned on the light to the basement and we went down the basement stairs enough to get a glimpse.

Later that night the realtor calls me and asks me how I am feeling. I said fine except I had a bit of a rash on my lower right leg. "that is not a rash, she says. It is Flea Bites!"  She had them all over the bottom of both legs. The realtor was sooooo apologetic and embarrassed about it all.

I also went to an open house once where they had a dog and the minute you went inside it hit you. The realtor must have had  a very bad cold and terrible eyesight. Lotsa big stains on the carpet and odor was indescrible.